I spent a few days in Vegas recently and the 24/7 chaos was overwhelming. It’s pure overload for all your senses – tons of people everywhere, driving billboards, TVs in the restrooms, a wide array of smells, and a cacophony of sounds at full volume.

It’s a little like how we’re assaulted by marketing messages every day. Over 5,000 messages a day – aimed at all of our senses, pretty much 24/7.

As consumers — it feels like an attack we have to guard against. As marketers — it’s like a mountain we have to scale.

But somehow our message needs to fight its way to the top and actually be heard. How do we make that happen?

But that megaphone has to be built in the right order and contain the right elements. Otherwise, it’s just more noise.

Here’s how to construct a marketing megaphone that actually works.

It starts with you: To break through the clutter – you need to be crystal clear about your core messaging. You need to completely understand how you’re different from your competitors, why you matter to your customers and how you can improve their world.

Imagine your voice in the din of over 5,000 messages. You’re whispering and counting on the next layers in the marketing megaphone to magnify your message. So it sure better be the exact right words/sentiment.

Once you know yourself, you need a plan: Marketing doesn’t happen by accident. You need a clear-cut vision for how you’re going to get out the word. Over 90% of businesses operate without a marketing plan and yet they wonder why they have to work so hard for new sales.

A marketing plan eliminates stutter (you hurry up to market when you’re slow and then stop when you get busy, losing all momentum along the way) or inconsistent marketing.

Your inside advantage: One of the most costly mistakes made by companies is that they forget how vital their employees are to their marketing efforts. A team that’s left in the dark can’t possibly help amp up your message. In most cases, they have the contact with your customers and prospects. So why wouldn’t you want them to be completely plugged into your core messaging and your marketing plan for spreading the word?

Be worth bragging about: Another way to turn up the volume in your marketing megaphone is to give your current customers something to talk about. If you delight them or are the kind of organization they’re proud to be associated with – they’ll shout it to the world via their social networks, their in person networks and through referrals.

All too often, we forget to romance them once we actually get the sale. But, by making them feel wanted and special – you not only create recurring revenue at a lower cost of acquisition but you create a legion of cheerleaders, all out there, putting some oomph into that megaphone.

The exact right prospects: One of the key benefits of truly understanding your brand is that you learn who your perfect customers are. You will identify who really needs what you offer and who would be elated to buy it from you. When you have a profile of exactly who that is – you can aim your marketing megaphone right at their ear and not worry about the rest of the world.

Getting heard isn’t easy but with the help of a properly built megaphone, your message can rise above the din and get to the right audience every time.

One of the things that irks me is when I hear a marketing “expert” extoll the virtues of content (or social or digital) marketing and to close the sale — they remind their audience — “and best of all, it’s free.”

Poppycock. (I know…such language!)

At MMG, we believe there’s not really an organization in existence that can’t benefit from a content marketing program.

But like most good things — it’s not free. Access to some of the social networks might be free — but creating compelling content that demonstrates the value of working with you is going to cost you time, attention, dedication, money, and a host of other things.

Facebook advertising best practices

For many businesses, advertising on the social network Facebook has proven to be a very successful model. Facebook’s model is to be pretty rigid in terms of what you can and can’t do on your ad. They’re all the same size and shape. The format for all ads is exactly the same. There are specific character counts for both the headline and the body copy.

So you have to work pretty hard to capture someone’s attention, considering all the sameness. The ads are inexpensive but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do them well. If you’re going to invest the money, be sure you consider these suggestions.

Start with the end in mind: Like any marketing, you should set your goals up front. How will you define and measure success? Know what niche you’re targeting and what you want them to do.

Decide – click or view: You can pay for Facebook ads in one of two ways. You can either pay for impressions or for clicks. If you’re just looking for awareness, impressions may make more sense. If you want to drive people to another website or a specific product’s landing page, then clicks will work better. (Do the math to double check your choice)

Already be there: Ideally, you would couple your Facebook advertising with a robust Facebook fan page. You should also change the standard URL that Facebook assigns your page to a custom URL. You can do this for free once you have 25 likes for the page.

Visuals: Facebook allows you one photo per ad. The maximum size your photo can be is 110 pixels wide by 80 pixels tall. You’re much better off to pre-size your photo yourself, rather than have Facebook do it for you.

You want to have a picture that pops off the screen and that’s tough at 110 pixels. Be sure you choose a photo that is dramatic and isn’t too busy. You’ll get bonus views if your image is unusual, very local (if that’s your target) or even something shocking or impossible.

Hit the target: One of the biggest benefits offered by Facebook ads is the ability to hyper target your ads. You can target by geography (down to a specific city), by gender, age, education, and even marital status. Beyond that, you can also target your ads by keywords. You can be so specific that, for example, the only people who see your ads are married women who live in Colorado Springs, are between 25 and 33 and love both black and white photography, horses and iPads.

What this means is there is very little waste. You can pinpoint exactly who matters. You can also narrow the field too much. Be sure to think through those decisions carefully.

Less is more: You only have 135 characters for your body copy so choose every word with great care. Don’t waste any words on giving them contact information (they’re going to click on the ad if they want to reach you) or details that aren’t critical to getting them to take that next step and click. Like in all advertising – asking a question can be a very compelling way to get someone’s attention.

Testing 1-2-3: One of the best things about Facebook ads are all the analytics they provide at no charge. You can track and test your ads over and over again until you’ve reached the pinnacle of effectiveness. Run multiple ads in a campaign and see how they perform against one another. Watch for ads that start to slow down. Change something simple like the headline or image to see if the ad’s activity picks back up.

Facebook ads can be a potent tool in your marketing arsenal so make the most of them by following these suggestions.

If you’ve used FB ads — what was your best secret?

McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US.
How might we help you?

I’ve heard all the reasons, especially from B2B companies…but the “our customers aren’t on Facebook” excuse is just that, an excuse.

We buy radio stations and send direct mail hoping to hit some of our target audience. Why do we look at Facebook so differently?

With statistics (thanks to HubSpot for sharing this slide) like these… every business owner and marketing director should be figuring out how to leverage the Facebook crowd.

I’m not saying you need a fan page. Or have to do a contest or create a game. I’m saying you’d better understand what happens there. You’d better be monitoring what is being said about your company there.

You need to decide HOW to be there. But you can’t ignore it simply because you have a preconceived idea of who hangs out there.

Odds are… it’s your customers. And they hang out there a lot.

McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US.
How might we help you?

…buy the right help from the right agency

Okay…the other day I blew a fuse about social media consultants selling smoke screens and mirrors. (read my rant here)

Which of course begs the question — what SHOULD you buy from someone who actually has an expertise in melding social media into the rest of your marketing efforts? (And yes…at MMG we do all of this but so do many other qualified and competent consultants)

Strategy: Whether you’re pretty familiar with all things social or you don’t know your Facebook page from your Facebook status — it helps to have an outsider help you think through your strategy.

They’ll ask questions to get you really thinking about WHY you’re investing resources into social media and WHAT goals/results matter to your organization.

Measurements: A good social media strategist will help you determine WHAT to measure and HOW to measure what matters.

While social media serves up things to count, they don’t always count, if you know what I mean. That you have 1,348 Twitter followers may be important or it may just be a meaningless number.

A good strategist will help you determine not only what to measure but help you set up a comparative reporting system (we call ours The MMG Digital Footprint) that monitors your progress.

Mechanics: You don’t need to know how to code a blog or customize a Facebook fan page to build one into your marketing activities. Let your social media consultant either do the heavy lifting or supervise someone else doing it for you.

The great thing about most social media is that it’s plug and play but the truth is — it should all look and feel like your brand. Which means some customization is needed.

Content Massaging: Odds are you already have plenty of raw material for content creation. But it’s probably not written in the style, length or format best suited for social media.

Need a white paper turned into an ebook? Or a research report converted into an infographic? Let your social media agency take your existing material and get it ready for your friends and followers.

Coaching: Understanding that a touchdown is worth 6 points is very different from knowing the nuances of how to actually get into the end zone. Many companies fumble the ball (sorry — the last football analogy) by applying old school marketing behaviors to these new marketing tools.

Having someone at your side, teaching you how to navigate the new waters without making any faux pas. Remember…Google never forgets.

Systems: There are plenty of tools out there to help make your social media activities more efficient and easier to manage. Whether it’s setting up your listening post (it’s not just about creating content — you need to know what people are saying about your company, your industry, your competitors etc.) or scheduling your content’s publication (so you can time fresh content to appear when your audience is online) — your social media partner can help you do more with less effort.

Integration: Social media (like all marketing tactics) should not exist in a vacuum. It should fold into the rest of your marketing strategy and efforts. Otherwise, you are not stacking up your impressions and maximizing every dollar and every effort.

Of course, that’s just hitting the highlights but you get the idea. There’s plenty for an agency to help you with. But they should be behind the scenes…not front and center.

There’s no substitute for your smarts, years of experience or personality. That’s how your prospects meet your brand.

McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US.
How might we help you?

I think there are few on this planet who don’t recognize that the Facebook phenomenon is staggering in its reach and sheer volume of people. (One guy just named his baby Facebook!) But it’s hard to not gape at some of these numbers (from SocialHype and OnlineSchools.org) These user statistics are more social proof that this beast is not a fad.

Hard to imagine that there’s not a smart way for every single business to use this tool. Are you using it?